To My Toxic Half, This is my Final Bow and Last Goodbye

“You turned out to exactly who they said you were. I never pretended to be someone else. And it was me that was hurt…I know that guy is somewhere deep inside you, but, I can’t wait for him. Because waiting for you, is like waiting for rain in a drought. Useless and disappointing.”? – A Cinderella Story

It breaks me to say goodbye to you. In fact, I wanted with every fiber of my being for us to make it. I wanted the words you say not to be lies. I wanted to prove that your reputation wasn’t what everyone said it was. I wanted everyone to be wrong about you.

And maybe one day they will be. Maybe I’ve given up too soon. Maybe one day you’ll be the man I pretended you were all this time. In fact, I know you will be one day. So maybe that’s why I hung on so long.

But I want you to know I forgive you for all of it.

But despite forgiving you, I can’t sit here and wait for you to become the person you need to be. The cost is self-destruction in the process. The cost is you hurting me to get there.

I can’t sit here and wait for the respect I deserved this whole time. I can’t sit here and wait to be loved, when I’m giving the best of myself. I can’t sit here playing a game. It’s like a game of Jumanji. Either something is going to kill me along the way, or I’ll finish.

I don’t have it in me to finish. And honestly, I think right now I’m living only half alive because of you. Cause you’ve chewed up and spit out everything I am. And I’m not the same person that I was before I fell in love with you. I didn’t know falling in love with you, would mean falling on the ground so often, only to be kicked every time I got to my knees.

I forgive you for your past mistakes. I forgive you for the person you were. I know you may not be him anymore or maybe you’re on the road to bettering yourself. But, that same toxic person turned everything black in its path, myself included.

I didn’t deserve to be used. I didn’t deserve being talked to the way you did. I didn’t deserve the fights and the screaming and the tears. While I didn’t deserve those things, I tolerated it. I tolerated it and in time it felt like a norm. That’s on me.

I valued the good days we had because I was so glad it wasn’t a bad one.

You kept me on edge though. You kept me walking on eggshells. I’d stare at a phone with bubbles that went on for minutes, only to have them disappear and nothing was said. It was like you knew I was staring at it, just waiting. Then I’d say something and you’d ignore me…Because I was inconvenient for you.

Do you know what was inconvenient for me? Waking up every night at 2 A.M. in a cold sweat, wondering what I’m doing in this relationship. But it wasn’t even defined as a relationship really. One day you liked me and another day you hated me. One day we were “just friends” and the next day you’d laugh in my face, saying we never can be just friends and I knew it. You were neither friend, but certainly a foe. Every sign and every friend told me to let you go.

Do you know what it’s like to look at someone you love, with all your heart and believe in them despite everyone’s doubt?

Do you have any clue how hard it is to walk away from the person you love most in this world?

You’ll learn to love me in my absence. And that’s the worst type of love.

Love isn’t pain. I know that much to be true. Even at your worst, I never wanted to hurt you. If anyone deserved pain, it might have been you. But I never wanted to hurt you the way you hurt me.

And I don’t think you saw the full effect of what you did to me.

I knew you were the one to blame. But you’d laugh when I’d say those things. You’d run off names of others in my past, telling me the only reason I’m damaged is because of them. It was almost like you were justifying your mistreatment, because others treated me bad before. You should have been the one proving to me, I didn’t deserve that. Then you said it was my fault. I might have been damaged by the others before you, but they never broke me the way you did. They never changed me the way you did. I overcame them, but I couldn’t overcome you.

I became so numb by you. I thought this was normal.

I want you to know I forgive you. I forgive the person you were, because I know you won’t be him one day. But the person you were burnt a lot of people. And you burnt the one person who loved you the most. You liked the attention. You liked knowing someone loved you, when you couldn’t possibly love yourself.

I want you to know, although you might have walked away from your past, even a past you run from, has a way of sneaking up on you. You think you’ve hid every skeleton in your closet, but eventually the past will come back to haunt you. It will ruin you the way you ruined me.

So run my dear. Run as far and fast as you can. When you get far enough, the ghost that will haunt you most, when you look back will be regret.

Remember, it’s a lonely road to the top, when all you’ve ever done is step on people like me to get there.

You kept pushing me time and time again asking if I hate you yet…I think I do.

I hate you for making me think this was normal.

I love you enough to hate you. Because hell that’s my only chance I have at overcoming you.